Liberty No. 2 Seed for Baseball Championship

The Liberty Flames have earned the No. 2 seed for the upcoming Royal Purple Big South Baseball Championship, Tuesday-Saturday, at Dan Daniel Memorial Park in Danville, Va.

Liberty, which is the official host of the championship and has been the tournament's runner-up the past two seasons, secured the No. 2 seed with victories over High Point on Friday and Saturday. The seed is the highest seeding for the Flames in the Big South Baseball Championship since a No. 1 seed in 2000, the last time Liberty won the conference crown. The Flames entered their first round game on Wednesday with a 31-24-1 overall record and a 14-7 Big South mark. With its win total this season, Liberty has won 30 or more games for the fourth consecutive year, the first time in the 35-year history of the program.

For the second consecutive season and the third time in the last four years, Coastal Carolina is the No. 1 seed in the Purple Big South Baseball Championship. The Chanticleers won the outright 2008 regular-season championship with a 17-3 Conference mark.

Following the Flames, VMI garnered the No. 3 seed with its record of 14-7 in Big South play (29-24 overall). Liberty received the higher seed by virtue of its series victory over the Keydets during the regular season. Winthrop claims the fourth seed with its 11-10 League mark (24-32 overall). The top four seeds will open tournament play on Wednesday.

For the second-straight year, the Big South Baseball Championship will feature eight squads competing for the League's automatic berth a NCAA Regional. The bottom four teams will play a single-elimination game on Tuesday. The first game will feature the No. 6 seed Radford Highlanders against No. 7 Charleston Southern Buccaneers at 4 p.m., followed by the No. 5 High Point Panthers facing No. 8 UNC Asheville at 7 p.m.

Seeding of teams for the Big South Baseball Championship is first determined by the number of Conference wins, and if teams have the same number of Conference wins, the team with the higher conference winning percentage shall receive the higher seed. Radford (6-14), Charleston Southern (6-15) and UNC Asheville (6-15) all tied with six conference wins, but Radford received the No. 6 seed based on its higher conference winning percentage. Charleston Southern won the head-to-head series over UNC Asheville to claim the higher seed.

Tuesday's winners advance to the main double-elimination bracket, with the lowest remaining seed playing No. 1 Coastal Carolina, Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. and the highest remaining seed facing No. 2 Liberty at 3 p.m. No. 3 VMI and No. 4 Winthrop will meet at 7 p.m. in the final game of the first day.

The championship continues with Games 4-6 on Thursday and Games 7-9 on Friday. The title game is schedule for 1 p.m. on Saturday. All games will be video streamed live on the league's premium content web site, The Big South EDGE presented by State Farm. Tournament games will be available daily via the $6.95 Day Pass -- which covers all games played that respective day -- or the $14.95 Full Championship Pass, which features the tournament in its entirety. In addition, real-time "Live Stats" will be available on both the league's and Liberty's website free of charge.

In addition to the start of main bracket play Wednesday, the Big South will announce the 2008 All-Conference teams in an on-field ceremony prior to the 3 p.m. contest.